Building a very low cost satellite tracker for your RTL-SDR

A satellite tracker is a motorized unit that points a directional antenna towards passing satellites. Most satellites are not in a fixed orbit, and will fly over your head a few times a day and will be receivable for a few minutes, and a directional antenna is usually recommended since the signals can be weak. The goal of the SatNOGS project is to set up various volunteer satellite tracker stations around the world, and network the received data on the internet, so that satellite data is always being received and shared.

Although the tracker works, he admits that there are some problems and that it is probably not as good as the SatNOGS recommended build, which is a more permanent solution. But the SatNOGS build requires access to a 3D printer and higher quality components, so Paul’s solution is a much cheaper solution to implement at least for experimentation.

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What is RTL-SDR

The RTL-SDR is an ultra cheap software defined radio based on DVB-T TV tuners with RTL2832U chips. The RTL-SDR can be used as a wide band radio scanner. It may interest ham radio enthusiasts, hardware hackers, tinkerers and anyone interested in RF.